Phalcon 2.0.4 released!

Read time: 6 minutes

As part of our three to five weeks minor release schedule, we are excited to announce that Phalcon 2.0.4 has been released!

The number of improvements and bug fixes are a lot more compared to other releases in the 2.0.x series:

Changes

  • Fixed bug in Phalcon\Mvc\Model::update() that mistakenly throws an exception when the record does exist
  • Now links in Phalcon\Debug point to https://api.phalcon.io instead of https://docs.phalcon.io
  • Implemented a more versatile way to assign variables in Volt allowing to assign properties and array indexes
  • Improved generation of macros in Volt using anonymous functions instead of plain PHP functions, which allows binding the adapter object and injecting services within them
  • Fixed generation and validation of default parameters in Volt’s macros
  • Added Phalcon\Assets\Manager::getCollections() to return all collections registered 2488
  • Now Phalcon\Mvc\Url::getStatic() generates URLs from routes
  • Introduced Phalcon\Mvc\EntityInterface to allow parameters receive both Phalcon\Mvc\Model and Phalcon\Mvc\Collection instances. This interface allows Mvc\Model\Validators to be used in Mvc\Collection
  • Added Phalcon\Session\Adapter::setName() to change the session name
  • Added BIGINT column type support in Phalcon\Db
  • Added new types Phalcon\Db\Column::BLOB and Phalcon\Db\Column::DOUBLE 10506
  • Automatic binding of Large Object data (LOB) in the ORM
  • Support for BIT types in MySQL with binding as booleans
  • Added Phalcon\Flash\Direct::output() allowing to place flash messages in a specific place of the view 629
  • Added ‘autoescape’ option that allows to globally enable autoescape in any Volt template
  • Added readAttribute/writeAttribute to Phalcon\Mvc\Collection\Document
  • Added toArray to Phalcon\Mvc\Collection\Document
  • Global setting db.force_casting now forces casting bound parameters to specified bind types
  • Introduced new placeholders in PHQL enclosed in brackets that allow to set the type: {name:str} or {names:array}
  • Now you can bind arrays in bound parameters in PHQL
  • Global setting orm.cast_on_hydrate allows casting hydrated attributes to the original types in the mapped tables instead of using strings
  • Values in LIMIT/OFFSET clause are now passed using bound parameters in PHQL
  • Allowing late state binding in both Simple/Complex results to allow override Mvc\Model::cloneResultMap
  • Added method distinct() in Phalcon\Mvc\Model\Criteria 10536
  • Added global setting orm.ignore_unknown_columns to ignore unexpected columns when hydrating instances in the ORM. This fixes extra auxiliary columns used in Db\Adapter\Pdo\Oracle
  • Added support for afterFetch in Mvc\Collection
  • Added beforeMatch parameter in @Route annotation of Mvc\Router\Annotations
  • Added groupBy/getGroupBy/having/getHaving to Mvc\Model\Criteria
  • Phalcon\Mvc\Model::count() now return values as integer
  • Removed __construct from Phalcon\Mvc\View\EngineInterface
  • Added Phalcon\Debug\Dump::toJson() to return an JSON string of information about a single variable
  • Instances in Phalcon\Di are built using internal optimizers instead of \ReflectionClass (PHP 5.6)
  • Added Phalcon\Mvc\Model\Validator\IP from incubator
  • Added parameter return defaultValue in Phalcon\Mvc\Model\Validator::getOption()
  • Developers can now define relationships based on conditionals

Highlights

Typed Placeholders in the ORM

Before this version, only standard placeholders (strings and numerical) were supported in PHQL. Placeholders allowed you to bind parameters to avoid SQL injections:

$phql = "SELECT * FROM Store\Robots WHERE id > :id:";
$robots = $this->modelsManager->executeQuery($phql, ['id' => 100]);

However, some database systems require additional actions when using placeholders like specify the bind type:

use Phalcon\Db\Column;

// ...

$phql = "SELECT * FROM Store\Robots LIMIT :number:";
$robots = $this->modelsManager->executeQuery(
    $phql,
    ['number' => 10],
    Column::BIND_PARAM_INT
);

To make this task easy, Phalcon 2.0.4 introduces typed placeholders, these work exactly as the other supported ones but additionally you can specify the type:

$phql = "SELECT * FROM Store\Robots LIMIT {number:int}";
$robots = $this->modelsManager->executeQuery(
    $phql,
    ['number' => 10]
);

$phql = "SELECT * FROM Store\Robots WHERE name <> {name:str}";
$robots = $this->modelsManager->executeQuery(
    $phql,
    ['name' => $name]
);

You can also omit the type if you don’t need to specify it:

$phql = "SELECT * FROM Store\Robots WHERE name <> {name}";
$robots = $this->modelsManager->executeQuery(
    $phql,
    ['name' => $name]
);

Typed placeholders are also more powerful, since we can now bind a static array without having to pass each element independently as a placeholder:

$phql = "SELECT * FROM Store\Robots WHERE id IN ({ids:array})";
$robots = $this->modelsManager->executeQuery(
    $phql,
    ['ids' => [1, 2, 3, 4]]
);

The following types are available:

Bind Type Bind Type Constant Example
str Column::BIND_PARAM_STR {name:str}
int Column::BIND_PARAM_INT {number:int}
double Column::BIND_PARAM_DECIMAL {price:double}
bool Column::BIND_PARAM_BOOL {enabled:bool}
blob Column::BIND_PARAM_BLOB {image:blob}
null Column::BIND_PARAM_NULL {exists:null}
array Array of Column::BIND_PARAM_STR {codes:array}
array-str Array of Column::BIND_PARAM_STR {names:array}
array-int Array of Column::BIND_PARAM_INT {flags:array}

Cast bound parameters values

By default, bound parameters aren’t casted in the PHP userland to the specified bind types, this option allows you to make Phalcon cast values before bind them with PDO.

A classic situation when this problem raises is passing a string in a LIMIT/OFFSET placeholder:

$number = '100';
$robots = $modelsManager->executeQuery(
    'SELECT * FROM Some\Robots LIMIT {number:int}',
    ['number' => $number]
);

This causes the following exception:

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'PDOException' with message 'SQLSTATE[42000]:
Syntax error or access violation: 1064 You have an error in your SQL syntax;
check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right
syntax to use near ''100'' at line 1' in /Users/scott/demo.php:78

This happens because 100 is a string variable. It is easily fixable by casting the value to integer first:

$number = '100';
$robots = $modelsManager->executeQuery(
    'SELECT * FROM Some\Robots LIMIT {number:int}',
    ['number' => (int) $number]
);

However this solution requires that the developer pays special attention about how bound parameters are passed and their types. To make this task easier and avoid unexpected exceptions you can instruct Phalcon to do this casting for you:

\Phalcon\Db::setup(['forceCasting' => true]);

The following actions are performed according to the bind type specified:

Bind Type Action
Column::BIND_PARAM_STR Cast the value as a native PHP string
Column::BIND_PARAM_INT Cast the value as a native PHP integer
Column::BIND_PARAM_BOOL Cast the value as a native PHP boolean
Column::BIND_PARAM_DECIMAL Cast the value as a native PHP double

Cast on Hydrate

Values returned from the database system are always represented as string values by PDO, no matter if the value belongs to a numerical or boolean type column. This happens because some column types cannot be represented with its corresponding PHP native types due to their size limitations.

For instance, a BIGINT in MySQL can store large integer numbers that cannot be represented as a 32bit integer in PHP. Because of that, PDO and the ORM by default, make the safe decision of leaving all values as strings.

However, some developers may find this unexpected and uncomfortable. From Phalcon 2.0.4, you can set up the ORM to automatically cast those types considered safe to their corresponding PHP native types:

\Phalcon\Mvc\Model::setup(['castOnHydrate' => true]);

This way you can use strict operators or make assumptions about the type of variables:

$robot = Robots::findFirst();
if ($robot->id === 11) {
    echo $robot->name;
}

Relationships with conditionals

With 2.0.4 you can create relationships based on conditionals. When querying based on the relationship the condition will be automatically appended to the query:

use Phalcon\Mvc\Model;

// Companies have invoices issued to them (paid/unpaid)

// Invoices model
class Invoices extends Model
{

}

// Companies model
class Companies extends Model
{
    public function initialize()
    {
        // All invoices relationship
        $this->hasMany('id', 'Invoices', 'inv_id', [
            'alias' => 'invoices'
        ]);

        // Paid invoices relationship
        $this->hasMany('id', 'Invoices', 'inv_id', [
            'alias'    => 'invoicesPaid',
            'params'   => [
              'conditions' => "inv_status = 'paid'"
            ]
          ]
        );

        // Unpaid invoices relationship + bound parameters
        $this->hasMany('id', 'Invoices', 'inv_id', [
            'alias'    => 'invoicesUnpaid',
            'params'   => [
              'conditions' => "inv_status <> :status:",
              'bind' => ['status' => 'unpaid']
            ]
          ]
        );
    }
}

Update/Upgrade

This version can be installed from the master branch, if you don’t have Zephir installed follow these instructions:

git clone https://github.com/phalcon/cphalcon
cd cphalcon/build
sudo ./install

If you have Zephir installed:

git clone https://github.com/phalcon/cphalcon
cd cphalcon
zephir build

Note that running the installation script will replace any version of Phalcon installed before.

Windows DLLs are available in the download page.

See the upgrading guide for more information about upgrading to Phalcon 2.0.x from 1.3.x.


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